Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road (6 page)

N
OVEMBER
16, 2011

Annie just got home. She and Sister Bobbie went to see Aretha Franklin tonight at Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater. They said she was still so great. Her recording of “Night Life” is so good, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to see her with them . . . oh well.

Annie and I have oral sex all the time. When we pass each other in the hallway I say, “Fuck you,” and she says, “Fuck you more.” Love like that never dies!

OCCUPY WALL STREET UPDATE #2

“Anyone who can remain calm in all this confusion just doesn’t understand the situation.”

I love Howard Zinn. Here’s one of my favorite quotes of his:

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves . . . [and] the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.

—H
OWARD
Z
INN

There’s really only you and me, and it’s always now.

—W
ILLIE
N
ELSON

GOD HATES FAGS

G
od hates fags

That’s what the sign said

God hates signs . . . God said

It’s a sign of the times

I said.

IN GOD'S EYES

Never think evil thoughts of anyone

It’s just as wrong to think as to say

For a thought is but a word that’s unspoken

In God’s eyes He sees it this way

Lend a hand if you can to a stranger

Never worry if he can’t repay

For in time you’ll be repaid ten times over

In God’s eyes He sees it this way

In God’s eyes we’re like sheep in a meadow

Now and then a lamb goes astray

But open arms should await its returning

In God’s eyes He sees it this way

Thought for the Day:
Sometimes I think, Well . . . then again I don’t know, but when you get right down to it, there it is.

NOW BACK TO THE FARMERS

I
see where three hundred thousand farmers are suing Monsanto, and someone said I was involved in the lawsuit, which I’m not, but I totally approve of it. And if it gets to the court they can call me and I will tell them exactly what I think about these industrial ag corporations who are poisoning the earth and putting farmers off the land, not only in America but also around the world.

BioWillie Biodiesel—a petroleum diesel alternative made from waste vegetable oil, waste fats, and seed oil crops

We have in America all the energy we need to run our country. We have hydro, solar, wind, and biodiesel, not to mention all the oil and gas still in the ground, but we are ignoring it all to go around the world starting wars to steal other people’s resources. Is it about oil or is it about starting wars? I think it’s both. I think there’s a lot of money in war. And as my ole buddy George W. says, “Money trumps peace.” It is assumed by the so-called 1 percent that there is more money in oil and war than there is in peace. That there is more money in oil and war for the people who own the oil and for defense contractors, who start and profit from all the wars. But I believe the opposite. I believe that this country would be better off bringing all of our troops home and putting them on our own borders to stop the trafficking of guns, drugs, and people. This is our major problem. All the money that’s involved in this kind of trafficking and the privatization of prisons is the problem. Then again . . . money trumps common sense.

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

We are what we wanted to be. We are the sum total of all our thoughts. If you don’t like who you are, change it. Change is just a thought away. Fake it till you make it, and one day you will be that person you wanted to be. If you like where you are, thank God and move on.

If you don’t like my face, fuck it . . . oh, you know . . . moving on.

FARM AID

T
he Farm Aid concerts started twenty-five years ago, when a governor and a group of entertainers decided to try to help the small family farmers who were being forced off their land to make room for subdivisions and golf courses. The big corporate, industrial agricultural farmers started taking the farms away from the small family farmers. We all thought that if the powers that be in Washington knew what was going on, they would fix it. As it turned out, the deck was stacked against the small family farmer. If the corporate farmers wanted the land, they got it.

So for twenty-five years, hundreds of entertainers have paid their own way to Farm Aid to perform for free for the family farmers they wanted to help save, because they could see what was happening to our food system and wanted to stop it. The whole twenty-five years, industrial ag farms were taking more and more small family farms, and little changed.

It is plain to see now that the people in Washington are very happy with the way things are going. At one time we had had eight million small family farmers. Today there are less than two million small family farmers on the land, and we are still losing the few who are left. As I mentioned before, the deck was stacked.

Around $40 million has been raised and given to the farm groups who are trying to help farmers who have already lost their farms as well as the ones who are left to fight the battle for us all. We tried, and a lot of farmers have received much-needed help. The farmers have been very thankful for what Farm Aid has been doing, and they thank all the singers and musicians who gave their talent over the years.

God bless the small family farmer, and the millions of people in this country who have tried to help them.

There are other parts of the world where the family farms have already all been taken, and when the governments tried to give the land back after realizing they did not know how to farm, the people said, “No, you got it, now it’s yours.” This could happen here one day.

Living in the now they say

But you really can’t do it any other way

Even if now all you do is dream of yesterday

You’re still living in the now

—W
ILLIE
N
ELSON

GUNS

T
he first gun I owned was a stick gun that went “Bang!” when I pulled the trigger. After that we made rubber guns. Rubber guns could hurt. Then I got a Daisy Red Ryder air rifle and took aim at tin cans, birds, and rabbits. Lucky for the birds and rabbits I was a bad shot, so rarely did I kill anything. When I was twelve I got a twelve-gauge shotgun. After that it was a four ten over-and-under and a deer gun—an Ithaca with a scope. I still couldn’t hit anything!

I had a good shot at a bear one time in Wyoming, but thankfully I missed him twice. I eventually got a .22, then a .357 Magnum when I was only twenty. I almost shot myself twice with that fucking pistol! I sat down one time in a motel room with a bunch of people. It somehow cocked itself, so when I sat down, it fired. But the bullet missed my leg and hit the floor. Everybody thought they were shot! I have not had great experiences with guns, so I hung ’em up before I killed somebody, something, or myself.

Guitar players can drink way too much—well, at least this one did. Abbott was in Hill County, and Hill County was a dry county, but right next door in West, which was McClennan County, it was not, so you could just go buy beer at the beer joints there. West was where I picked up my first paying gigs at the Night Owl, Albert’s Place, Chief Edwards’s Place, and Shadowland. By the time I had graduated from high school, I had already been playing all over West and Waco, and had developed quite a following for a sixteen-year-old. My first fan club was started by a few of the girls in Hillsboro (Barbara Jean McDermen, Claudia Moore, Joyce Epps, Florabell Turner). They bought me a nice suit to wear at my graduation from Abbott High School, which they all attended as members of my fan club. As you can probably understand, it was difficult to remain humble. But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah, guns.

All the talk now about gun control, I really understand. At the time the Second Amendment was conceived, all we had were one-shot muzzle-loading rifles. It was a different time. Now there are guns that can fire a hundred shots in less than a minute. Anyone with loved ones knows those should be outlawed. Those kinds of weapons were made only to kill people. I don’t know of any serious hunter who would use this kind of firepower to hunt. It is completely unsportsmanlike. A handgun, a shotgun, and a deer rifle are all we really need. Period. End of story.

DOMINOES

I
learned to play dominoes starting at the age of maybe five or six, and have played steadily ever since. There were domino parlors all over Abbott, a small town of three hundred or less. There was a table in Kiblinger’s store and tables in every cotton gin office—everyone I knew in Abbott played dominoes. I learned by standing around the tables watching the old men play. Four-handed partner games were common, and when one of them would have to get up for any reason, they would let me sit in their place, so I learned pretty quick, because I knew if I played wrong I would get my ass chewed out.

There were things about dominoes you needed to know. First of all, there are twenty-eight dominoes in the deck, and there are seven suits: blank, ace, deuce, trey, four, five, and six. There are one hundred and sixty-eight spots total, which is not really important to know; I’m just showing off. What
is
important to know are the basic dos and don’ts. The dos are: take all counts and kill all doubles, except the ones in your hand. The don’t would be: never play a suit that you have none of, if you can help it. We played to two hundred and fifty as the score. Now these days, over here in Hawaii, with Owen and Woody, they like to play to one hundred and fifty, which helps the less experienced domino player (insult intended). If chess is the game of kings, then dominoes is the game of hustlers and gamblers. In Abbott, when the old men were playing, it wasn’t for money. It was for the pride of beating your opponent; money wasn’t necessary. There was as much value in the pride of beating someone who was a good player as there was in winning any money. But mainly these old guys didn’t really have any money, just their pensions, which they weren’t going to throw away in a domino game. But they sure could play dominoes.

The world-championship domino tournament, which I instigated, was in West, Texas. I had all the entrants play against each other in head-up dominoes, and whoever won, I would play them for the championship . . . which guaranteed me number two domino player in the world, even if I lost. I applied the same theory to the world-championship calf-roping tournament in San Antonio. Again, I was second in the world! There were a lot of great domino players—well, there
are
a lot of great domino players—but the best domino player may have been my old buddy Zeke Varnon.

Zeke and I ran together for a long time in Texas. We worked together, drank together, gambled together, and fought together for over fifty years. One time Zeke and I were in Waco, and I left him in my car while I went into the house to pick up my girlfriend. I had just filled the car up with gas, and the guy who put the gas in had let the tank overflow onto the car. While I was in the house, Zeke was in the car asleep, or passed out, in the backseat, and some kid walked up and saw the gas leaking out of the car and yelled to Zeke in the car, “So what do you think would happen if I strike a match to this gas?” Zeke, startled, said, “Don’t do that, the son of a bitch will burn up!” The kid did it anyway. Next thing I know Zeke rushes into the house screaming, “Willie, come out, the car’s on fire!” My prized 1946 Ford burned to the ground, and I ended up selling it as junk for $25. I never did find that kid.

Another time with Zeke and me, this time at the Night Owl in West, there was a guy sitting at a table in the back drunk and passed out. He had fallen on the floor. Zeke went over to him, leaned down, doubled up his fists, and said, “Motherfucker, you get up and I’ll hit you again!” That was Zeke.

One time, Zeke passed out and our friend Billy Bressier went through his pockets and stole two dollars. Zeke came to and saw what had happened. He grabbed a baseball bat and chased Billy all over the domino hall.

I loved Zeke!

JOKES FOR DRUNKS

A
drunk went into the bar and asked another drunk what time it was.

The first drunk looked at his watch and said, “It’s thirteen o’clock.”

The second drunk said, “My God, let’s get out of here, it’s later than it’s ever been!”

A drunk fell out of a second-floor window.

A guy came running over and asked, “What happened?”